by Nick Jordan

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Getting (Pastoring) Things Done, Part III

I don’t know if you read popular productivity authors, but sometimes when I read Michael Hyatt, for instance, I get the impression that he is some sort of god living on an unattainable plain that I will never reach and perhaps should not waste the energy trying to reach. The truth is that Hyatt has great administrative leadership gifts and communication gifts, and he has invested those gifts well and over a long period of time. The truth is that I can write an ideal schedule to help maximize a healthy type of productivity and output, and I also live a normal life, that I wanted to share with you.

Monday, March 7, 2016
Home5:15am Wake up to learn I did not turn on my alarm (for 4:45am) last night5:20-5:35am Walk one mile (instead of the planned two)5:40am Coffee and finish episode of LoveI started on the treadmill5:55am Bible, Devotional, Pray6:25am Shower and get ready for work
6:40am Breakfast
6:55am Milo wakes up7:18am Leave for work

Work7:26am Morning Prayer8:15am Planning Pomodoro (including sermon prep, bulletin, edit and post sermon podcast, update church website, plan a meeting)8:45am Make coffee and help set up for Moms’ (and one Dad) Group and their kids9:30-10:45am Receive emergency call to visit a parishioner who is actively dying at local nursing home; go spend time with her, staff, family11-12:30pm Early lunch with a rep with a quote for a new church sanctuary sound system1pm Visit parishioner’s father2:15pm Arrive back at office–Noon Prayer2:45pm Plan Church Council meeting and make necessary copies3:45pm Head home5:40pm Head to meeting7:15pm Head home for the night

ReflectionsMy day started with a misstep (no alarm), a strong recovery (not two miles, but still some movement), a stronger slip (finish a TV episode), and a happy fault (still home when Milo awoke). I got to work, though, and I got right into Morning Prayer and then my Planning Pomodoro. Then forty-five minutes later came an emergency call that decimated my day.

It’s worth saying that it didn’t have to be that way. Part of what drove me to drop everything and jump in the car was genuinely that it is my job. Part of it was ego: the desire to put on my pastor cape and rush off to the rescue. And a good chunk was anxiety: not even professionals can really tell you someone is going to die in a half hour (as the person on the phone call insisted to me), but I didn’t want to think about myself as the one whom others thought of as failing to be there in an emergency. [That’s too many thinks.] I did not take five or ten minutes to assess: I went, and I’m glad I went, but it was with anxiety filling my sails.

I drove the 10-15 minutes to the nursing home, knowing that I would need a similar amount of time on the other end of the visit in order to make the lunch meeting. I had three minutes to spare, and then I had five minutes to spare between the lunch meeting and the time at another nursing care facility with another parishioner and his dying father. I drove there, set my phone timer for 4 minutes, and I had some “that crazy guy in the parking lot” silence.

For me, the important thing was to find the places of traction as things were slipping: not enough time for ideal exercise but enough for some exercise; late to work but still practicing Morning Prayer; only a couple minutes between appointments but enough time to be still.

Aside from the hours, it was an exhausting day. I did a CPE residency the year following seminary, but I have still never really learned how to care well for others without picking up too much of their emotions. The church council meeting to replace the sound system was the biggest financial decision the church has made in my time there, and I likened it to Mel afterwards to our conversations last year about buying a new car, but with six extra people at the table. And I got a call on the way home for the night to tell me that the woman I had visited in the morning had died.

That’s not a typical day or an atypical day, just a particular day. Without some pieces of structure that remained, particularly intentional prayer, time in Scripture, time set aside just for planning instead of doing, some good food and even a bit of exercise, I am convinced I would’ve been a lot worse off.